Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE, 35mm Film & Slide Scanner. 7200 dpi / 48-bit Output. Integrated Infrared Dust/Scratch Removal. Bundle Silverfast SE Plus, Support Mac and PC.

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Purchase options and add-ons

Media type Negatives, Slide, Photo
Scanner type Photo
Brand Plustek
Connectivity technology USB
Product Dimensions 12D x 27.2W x 11.9H Centimetres
Resolution 7200
Item weight 1600 Grams
Minimum system requirements Windows 7
UPC 808035087603 736913891366
Global Trade Identification Number 00808035087603

About this item

  • Built-in infrared channel can detect dust and scratches on the surface of the original negatives and slides. It is highly useful for defect removal without retouching the images.
  • 7200 x 7200 dpi (69 Megapixels) for 35mm Negative film and mounted slides. 48-bit input, 24/48-bit output
  • Up to 3.6 Dynamic Range Enhanced Multi-Exposure Function for improved image quality 64-bit hardware and software support
  • Powerful software include - bundles with Plustek QuickScan and LaserSoft Imaging Silverfast SE Plus
  • Support Windows 7/ 8/ 10/11 and Mac OS 10.7 to 14.x , user can download driver from Plustek website

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Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE, 35mm Film & Slide Scanner. 7200 dpi / 48-bit Output. Integrated Infrared Dust/Scratch Removal. Bu
$549.00
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Sold by Plustek Estore and ships from Amazon Fulfillment.
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Plustek Film Holder Kit (Negative + Positive) for OpticFilm 72~83 Series use only (8100, 8200i, 8300i)
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Only 3 left in stock.
Ships from and sold by Ophiuchus Star.
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WARNING:

CHOKING HAZARD -- WARNING: This product contains small magnets. Swallowed magnets can stick together across intestines causing serious infections and death. Seek immediate medical attention if magnets are swallowed or inhaled.

Product Description

Plustek OpticFilm 35mm film and slide scanner

Plustek OpticFilm 35mm film and slide scanner – High resolution, high quality digital images from your film and slides

The OpticFilm 8200i SE is a high-performance 35mm film and slide scanner that outputs brilliant digital images from analog film. It’s ideal for digitizing slides, color film and black and white film.

It’s the perfect scanner for professional and amature film photographers, and people that simply want to convert their old film and slides to digital format.

The OpticFilm 8200i SE uses a CCD sensor with 7200dpi high-resolution, specifically designed for film scanning, with 48-bit color bit depth that captures all the details from the original film. The scanner’s infrared channel removes dust and scratches eliminated the need for extensive post-processing correction.

Extraordinary enlargements from photo film

State of the art imaging system

7200 DPI High Resolution

High Dynamic Range

State of the art iState of the art imaging systemmaging system

The Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE is designed with state-of-the-art illumination and optical systems.

It uses a high-sensitivity color CCD sensor and LED illumination to ensure optimal image quality.

The built-in infrared channel detects dust and scratches on the film surface and automatically removes them.

7200 DPI High Resolution

This dedicated 35mm film scanner features true 7200 dpi optical resolution that ensures sharp and vivid images. Output files up to 68.9 megapixels are similar to those created by a full frame digital-SLR camera.

You can create high-quality enlargement prints up to 36” x 24”.

High Dynamic Range

Dynamic range is the range of recordable light from darkest to lightest on the exposed film that a scanner can read.

With a dynamic range of up to 3.6 D, you will rediscover how beautiful and natural the highlights and shadows are in analog photography.

iSRD - Infrared Dust and Scratch Removal

iSRD Infrared Dust and Scratch Removal

Slides and negatives always have small dust particles and tiny scratches on them, even when handled very carefully.

The OpticFilm 8200i scanner has an infrared channel that finds all the the dust and scratches on the film surface. Infrared light has a very wide wave-length, which allows it to pass through film emulsion of negatives and slides without resistance, as opposed to scratches and dust particles that reflect it. SilverFast iSRD utilizes this behavior as follows.

The image is scanned two times - the first is the regular scan and the second is the additional infrared scan that captures defects like dust and scratches only. Then the calculative dust and scratch removal takes effect, only where the infrared channel has detected any defects without losing any important details.

In conclusion, OpticFilm 8200i Series can automatically remove the dust and scratches from the scanned image.

Dust and scratches are removed during the scanning process eliminating the need for post-process removal of dust and scratches.

Silverfast Interface

Professional-grade software for scanning and optimizing scanned images

The Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE scanner is bundled with SilverFast SE Plus

SilverFast software is designed for both professionals and beginners for digitizing their analog images. Its intelligent automatic functions make it much easier to get brilliant results and exceed your expectations.

For Example:

  • SilverFast NegaFix with over 120 profiles for negative film ensures best results when converting negatives into brilliant scanned images.
  • SilverFast iSRDx feature is perfect for correcting dust and scratches on slides and color negatives without sharpness loss.
  • SilverFast Multi-Exposure reveals more shadow details and creates less image noise.

SilverFast software is available for both Mac and Windows platforms and also includes a native Adobe Photoshop plug-in.

How to install Silverfast Software

How to install Silverfast Software

1. There is a silverfast 9 paper card with the serial number of the scanner on the front and the location of the Silverfast account activation website on the back attached in the box. Please use it to activate your silverfast 9.

2. Please go to the SilverFast’s account activation website to select your scanner model name and apply the unlocked serial number by typing the OpticFilm 8100/8200i/8300 hardware serial number.

3. If you already have a MySilverFast account, please click “Login in here” inside red box to login with your silverfast account and password. Then please check your email box to receive the activation link.

4. If you don’t have a MySilverFast account, please fill out the form inside blue box to set up a MySilverFast account. Then click the “Register” button at the bottom of the webpage to activate your account. Then please check your email box to receive the activation link.

8100 8200i SE 8200i Ai 8300i Ai Slide x 2 Film x 2
OpticFilm 8100 OpticFilm 8200i SE OpticFilm 8200i Ai OpticFilm 8300i Ai Mounted Slide Holders x 2 Negative Film Stripe Holders x 2
See Details
Customer Reviews
3.9 out of 5 stars
171
4.0 out of 5 stars
689
4.2 out of 5 stars
270
4.2 out of 5 stars
133
4.7 out of 5 stars
64
4.7 out of 5 stars
48
Multi-Exposure ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Nega-Fix - True-color negative to positive conversion ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Kodachrome ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
AACO - Auto Adaptive Contrast Optimization ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
SCC - Select. Color Correction ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
48/16 Bit RAW Data ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
SRDx - software based dust and scratch removal ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
iSRD - infrared based dust and scratch removal ✓ ✓ ✓
Auto IT8 Color Calibration Basic - 1-slide Advanced - 3-slide
16 Bit Histogram ✓ ✓
OPticFilm Series

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Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE, 35mm Film & Slide Scanner. 7200 dpi / 48-bit Output. Integrated Infrared Dust/Scratch Removal. Bundle Silverfast SE Plus, Support Mac and PC.
Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE, 35mm Film & Slide Scanner. 7200 dpi / 48-bit Output. Integrated Infrared Dust/Scratch Removal. Bundle Silverfast SE Plus, Support Mac and PC.
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Price$549.00$299.99$638.30$269.99$555.39$136.99
Delivery
Get it by Saturday, Jul 6
Get it by Saturday, Jul 6
Get it Jul 9 - 16
Get it by Saturday, Jul 6
Get it Jul 9 - 16
Get it by Saturday, Jul 6
Customer ratings
4.04.0 out of 5 stars689
4.24.2 out of 5 stars753
3.73.7 out of 5 stars4
4.44.4 out of 5 stars9,090
3.93.9 out of 5 stars171
4.04.0 out of 5 stars3,348
Easy to use
—
4.1
—
4.5
—
4.1
Picture quality
—
4.1
—
4.3
—
3.8
Color balance
—
3.8
—
4.1
—
3.7
Value for money
—
3.2
—
4.1
—
3.8
Sold by
Plustek Estore
Canadian Shoppe
Deal Targets
Canadian Shoppe
Deal Targets
ShopTronics Canada
scanner type
Photo
Film
Film
Film
Film
Film
sheet capacity
—
100
—
1
—
1
connectivity tech
USB
USB
USB
USB, HDMI
USB
USB, Video Out TV cable
optical sensor tech
—
CMOS
CCD
CMOS
—
—
media type
Slide, Photo, Negatives
Negatives, Slide, Photo
Slide
Negatives, Slide
Negatives, Slide
Negatives, Slide, Photo
resolution
7200
—
7200
22 Megapixels
7200
24 mp
min. system requirement
Windows 7
—
—
Windows 7
Windows 7
—

Product information

Technical Details

Additional Information

Feedback

Plustek OpticFilm 8200i SE, 35mm Film & Slide Scanner. 7200 dpi / 48-bit Output. Integrated Infrared Dust/Scratch Removal. Bundle Silverfast SE Plus, Support Mac and PC.

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Important information

Visible screen diagonal

1" / 1 cm

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
689 global ratings
I received European plug version
4 Stars
I received European plug version
My order was filled direct from a supplier in Italy and shipped via DHL to my door. However the power pack was equipped with European plugs (2 styles) only. No way to plug it in to verify it worked until my brother came to the rescue with a plug converter he just happened to have picked up over the years. I'm not sure if others have experienced this problem as I assume Plustek must provide a North American version.The SilverFast SE Plus 8 was loaded and then updated on my iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. I purchased the Plustek unit because it has the infrared dust removal feature which is a big plus over my Epsom V500 flatbed scanner. This feature works well, but you must be careful to set the "Detection" sensitivity correctly. Too high will cause artifacts and distortions to be added to your scan. To set the detection level, click on the iSRD button to open the window for this feature. This triggers the unit do do an infrared scan of dust on your negative or slide. If the mode is set to "automatic" (seems always to produce picture distortion for me) change it to "Correct". I find settings around 8 work best. What dust could not be removed with iSRD can be removed with SRD. Again in the SRD window set the mode to "correct" and adjust the Tile size and Detection to obtain the optimum affect.As far as final file size, I selected JPEG and Format of 10.45 x 7.08 inch - this gives a file size (depends of detail in the picture) of 1 to 4 megabytes.So far I'm very happy with Plustek and SilverFast - but still lots to learn
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Top reviews from Canada

Connor F.
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing scanner, crappy software.
Reviewed in Canada on April 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
As for the scanner, it’s excellent. Blows any flatbed scanner out of the water. I highly recommend it. Photo quality is really high, and it can even take a poorly exposed photo and make it look good.

The software is trash though. It gets the job done and has some interesting features, but it’s hard to use, confusing, ugly and constantly crashes on a brand new Mac.
7 people found this helpful
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david widdis
4.0 out of 5 stars Very decent scans.
Reviewed in Canada on May 5, 2020
Verified Purchase
The scanner arrived quite quickly (before expected date).
The scanner failed within hours, but in reality was just the USB cable (a new one is being shipped). There was a very fast response from Plustek regarding the problem.
The Silverfast software is a little trial and error, but it does create usable results after I got used to it.
The 35mm picture scanned was from an old trip in the early 90's (negative scan).
Customer image
david widdis
4.0 out of 5 stars Very decent scans.
Reviewed in Canada on May 5, 2020
The scanner arrived quite quickly (before expected date).
The scanner failed within hours, but in reality was just the USB cable (a new one is being shipped). There was a very fast response from Plustek regarding the problem.
The Silverfast software is a little trial and error, but it does create usable results after I got used to it.
The 35mm picture scanned was from an old trip in the early 90's (negative scan).
Images in this review
Customer image
Customer image
2 people found this helpful
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DORIN GOIAN
5.0 out of 5 stars Good
Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2021
Verified Purchase
Really recommend, great scan quality
Helpful
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Steve B.
1.0 out of 5 stars Not what is said to be
Reviewed in Canada on April 5, 2020
Verified Purchase
Bought this a few months back and didn't have time to get to it. Not as easy as it suggests, I wanted to scan negatives to create a digital image on computer. Im not an idiot, but this is difficult and support, manuals user guide etc are little help for the beginner. This is a trial and error project, tweak, scan save, have a look. Anyone buying this device has a lot of negatives to scan, why else would you pay $500. The packaged software Silverfast SE Plus, has an auto workflow, but the kicker is they do not allow saving of default settings in this version and each negative of the set requires 17 mouse clicks just to get through the auto workflow. Upgrading software to get the functionality will cost you another $180USD. Support from Silversoft is terrible, as is their website for beginners. The scanner device seems ok, but useless with out the software to run it. Save yourself the stress and frustration, take negatives to a store and get them done; also save yourself the money. the software may be good, but for a beginner/ non expert its a pain in the backside. I really regret buying this device and would welcome a return and get something more appropriate without conning me out of another $180 bucks to do something that is so fundamental, it’s not funny!! Not one of my sane days, but Im not going to tell the wife... Email sent to Plustek requesting a refund, and need to find a different, non Silverfast solution.
16 people found this helpful
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Christine
3.0 out of 5 stars I guess its the best commercial grade scanner you can buy.
Reviewed in Canada on July 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
Scanner is good. Its well built and scans any type of negative. Look at buying extra trays so you can load another strip of negative while the other tray scans. It takes a long time to scan each pic.

Software (not theirs) is needlessly complicated. Don't buy it for the "clean up options" it doesn't do this at all. I also own there photo scanner which is amazing on every level so I was pretty disappointed that they used another vendors buggy, complicated, slow scan time software.

Truthfully I have a 120 $ negative scanner that does pretty much the same job faster.
5 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars I received European plug version
Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2020
Verified Purchase
My order was filled direct from a supplier in Italy and shipped via DHL to my door. However the power pack was equipped with European plugs (2 styles) only. No way to plug it in to verify it worked until my brother came to the rescue with a plug converter he just happened to have picked up over the years. I'm not sure if others have experienced this problem as I assume Plustek must provide a North American version.
The SilverFast SE Plus 8 was loaded and then updated on my iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. I purchased the Plustek unit because it has the infrared dust removal feature which is a big plus over my Epsom V500 flatbed scanner. This feature works well, but you must be careful to set the "Detection" sensitivity correctly. Too high will cause artifacts and distortions to be added to your scan. To set the detection level, click on the iSRD button to open the window for this feature. This triggers the unit do do an infrared scan of dust on your negative or slide. If the mode is set to "automatic" (seems always to produce picture distortion for me) change it to "Correct". I find settings around 8 work best. What dust could not be removed with iSRD can be removed with SRD. Again in the SRD window set the mode to "correct" and adjust the Tile size and Detection to obtain the optimum affect.
As far as final file size, I selected JPEG and Format of 10.45 x 7.08 inch - this gives a file size (depends of detail in the picture) of 1 to 4 megabytes.
So far I'm very happy with Plustek and SilverFast - but still lots to learn
Customer image
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars I received European plug version
Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2020
My order was filled direct from a supplier in Italy and shipped via DHL to my door. However the power pack was equipped with European plugs (2 styles) only. No way to plug it in to verify it worked until my brother came to the rescue with a plug converter he just happened to have picked up over the years. I'm not sure if others have experienced this problem as I assume Plustek must provide a North American version.
The SilverFast SE Plus 8 was loaded and then updated on my iMac running macOS Mojave 10.14.6. I purchased the Plustek unit because it has the infrared dust removal feature which is a big plus over my Epsom V500 flatbed scanner. This feature works well, but you must be careful to set the "Detection" sensitivity correctly. Too high will cause artifacts and distortions to be added to your scan. To set the detection level, click on the iSRD button to open the window for this feature. This triggers the unit do do an infrared scan of dust on your negative or slide. If the mode is set to "automatic" (seems always to produce picture distortion for me) change it to "Correct". I find settings around 8 work best. What dust could not be removed with iSRD can be removed with SRD. Again in the SRD window set the mode to "correct" and adjust the Tile size and Detection to obtain the optimum affect.
As far as final file size, I selected JPEG and Format of 10.45 x 7.08 inch - this gives a file size (depends of detail in the picture) of 1 to 4 megabytes.
So far I'm very happy with Plustek and SilverFast - but still lots to learn
Images in this review
Customer image
Customer image
3 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars NON-RETURNABLE
Reviewed in Canada on March 9, 2024
Verified Purchase
The item arrived and I only tested it for a few hours - I found that it wasn't what I needed - too slow for the amount of film I would be scanning, but apparently there are no returns on this allowed despite it saying otherwise on the amazon return policy?
2 people found this helpful
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Robert Carrie
3.0 out of 5 stars Incorrect plug on the power supply
Reviewed in Canada on November 29, 2020
Verified Purchase
The power supply came with an interchangeable United Kingdom plug (type G) and European plug (type C) but did come with a North American plug (type A). I had to go and purchase a European to North American plug adaptor. (My 3-star rating only pertains to how the scanner was received. I have not installed the software or used it yet.)
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Escobar
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnífico escaner para 35mm
Reviewed in Mexico on May 9, 2023
Verified Purchase
Buen escaner, la calidad de imagen obtenida es muy buena. Los tiempos de escaneo son aceptables para mi. Sin embargo siento que la tecnología es un poco obsoleta: el cable es USB tipo B a USB tipo A y SiverFast 8 viene… en un Disco Compacto en pleno 2023!! He tenido que comprar un Chablé adicional USB tipo B a USB C y descargar el software desde el sitio web de SilverFast, lo cual no es muy intuitivo que digamos y complica las cosas al usuario final. No obstante, estoy satisfecho con la compra y debo decir que he obtenido mejores escaneos que usando mi cámara de 25mpx y una lente macro para escanear. Este escaner ha logrado que la fotografía analógica me vuelva a motivar!
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LEFEUVRE PHILIPPE
5.0 out of 5 stars Très bon appareil
Reviewed in France on March 6, 2024
Verified Purchase
Impeccable pour scanner diapos et négatifs. Le scannage est un peu long, mais c'est normal si on veut de la qualité de rendu. J'ai commencé à scanner déjà une centaine de diapos sans aucun problème.
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Matthias b
3.0 out of 5 stars Great scanner, very bad drivers and software
Reviewed in Belgium on February 14, 2024
Verified Purchase
Plus:
- great scanner
- fast (according to scan resolution)

Cons:
- Plustek driver givers wrong color tint
- Silverfast builds on the Plustek driver, so the tint is there too.

Advice:
- buy the Plustek 8200i for the lowest price possible neglecting Silverfast's pricy 'upgrades'.
- use Vuescan software (their reversed engineered driver works flawlessly, indeed OMG)

Background:
- scanned 2 weeks fulltime using Plustek drivers and Silverfast, on two different machines, windows 10 & 11. => Green, blue or red haze in every picture!? Tried resetting, reinstalling, not touching any of the app's settings, still came out awful.

I sent a support ticket to Silverfast, with the above info + many more info and examples.

After literally 5mins the reply was please reset the software, which i stated done in my support ticket.

So done with silverfast!
One person found this helpful
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King Lerch
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for the money, though a bit slow to scan
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2021
Verified Purchase
I've done a few hundred slides and negatives with this unit and the quality of the scans and the ease of use are really great. The SilverFast software is a nice bonus, but needs simpler documentation to use. First, there is no need to use most of these features if you have a photo editing software you like better, like Photoshop. The editing you can do in post (once scanned) should probably be some in some other software. Just use SilverFast to get the quality scan and do the rest elsewhere, IMO of course.

1 - Set the scan dimensions you want, name (SilverFast automatically increments the name, it will not overwrite), ppi, etc. The Format is a bit odd as it sometimes looks like it is giving you less resolution at a larger size, but it really isn't. My suggestion is to start at 3600ppi, unless you know you will need higher or lower resolution. Of course the speed changes a lot when you change the ppi. You also choose the file format here. I would have liked to see PNG format, but the JPEG quality options make this better than it would normally be. The other options (TIFF, etc) will make very large files, which is ok for a few scans, otherwise it would just be too much data.

2 - Set the proper Transparency/Negative options for what you are scanning. I would suggest setting the Frame to fullscreen. You can crop later.

3 - Turn iSRD and SRDx on, but turn off the 1:1 (Exact Preview). If you want to verify your SRDx settings, you can turn on the 1:1 after Prescan, or leave 1:1 on if you really want to adjust the SRDx settings for each scan. But normally a good setting can be found for all scans ( I set the detection to 1 and Tile Size to 3) and save this step. Also, "Bright Defects" is normally used for negatives and "Dark Defects" is normally set for slides. If you can get rid of 90% of defects without harming the image, consider it close enough. I leave iSRD set to Automatic, and it does a really great job in most cases. NOTE: iSRD can't seem to be used for B&W negatives or crazy things can happen.

4 - Turn all the other options (Densitometer, Picture Settings, NegaFix, and Unsharp Masking) to Auto.

5 - Put the film or slide in the middle position in the scanner, and Push Prescan at the top and wait for the prescan image to show up (30 seconds or so) If this part takes longer than 30 seconds, the magnifying glass is likely set to 100%, which is useful for some things but generally not necessary for the Prescan. Push the magnifying glass to change to full view or turn off 1:1 display on SRDx or iSRD.

6 - Picture Settings and NegaFix can be useful, but *only* in the cases where part of the image is overblown in a spotlight or some area is too bright or too dark. In these cases you can adjust the Midtone, Contrast, Exposure, and Tolerance. This can normally not be fixed afterward, which is why you'd want to do it prior to scanning. Generally SilverFast does a good job with auto brightness and I have only used these other options on a few occasions.

7 - Push the Scan button to do the final scan. If iSRD and SRDx functions are being used, the scan will take about 3 minutes. Otherwise it will take only 30 seconds, but the results will almost always be worse.

It may seem like a lot but once you get going, you see that very few options need changing. It's mostly just the Prescan button, the Scan button, and sometimes the iSRD and SRDx buttons for dust/scratches. The results have been really impressive for both transparencies and negatives.

Note: There is also a Multi-Exposure button that is either on or off. The idea is that it does a second scan (adding to the overall scan time) to get some details that could be lost in the darker background. However, I have seen little to no effect, at least on what I am scanning. YMMV.

UPDATE REGARDING HDR:

SilverFast includes the ability to do some sort of HDR or High Dynamic Range. The idea being, it takes multiple scans in different ways (multiple passes at different brightness levels, hard to explain) to get all available light information and store it all in 1 file. SilverFast calls this HDR RAW or HDRi RAW.

An example would be a dark stage with a spotlight. Without HDR, there would simply be no way to get all the details in the spotlight, and also the details in the dark. If scanning time and disk space are not a concern, this is going to capture the most information from the scan, with 500MB per file.

I'm not really sure the advantage or difference between HDR and HDRi, or why they have both options, maybe to save time/filesize. If you're going the HDR route, I would suggest the 64bit HDRi for color and 32bit HDRi for B&W, which are the maximums. You will then have a file with all information capturable by this scanner.

Then the RAW TIFF files can be taken into Photoshop, and with the HDR Toning feature, you can literally extract the details from both the bright and dark areas, it is really amazing.

However, the other thing you may notice as a downside (other than filesize and scanning time) is that iSRD and SRDx functions are off. Meaning you get all available information from the scans, but that includes the scratches and imperfections as well. These will have to be manually cleaned after scanning, which is not too hard to do with the Photoshop "Healing" tool.

So if the original is in good shape, or has challenging lighting, and time/filesize are not issues, go with HDRi. If the original has lots of challenging damage, or you don't want to spend as much time scanning/cleaning after, go with the 7 steps above.
75 people found this helpful
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Peter H
5.0 out of 5 stars A serious piece of kit.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 29, 2020
Verified Purchase
I’ve been scanning 35mm slides and negs, on and off, for nearly 20 years now, using a Minolta ScanElite II which cost a relative fortune “back in the day”. Sadly, this has been slowly failing for the last few years and is now effectively unusable, at least “on demand”. It is my only point of comparison with the Plustek, both good and bad. Good - very high Dmax (shadow detail), good auto batch scanning, used infrared Digital ICE dust removal to produce clean scans. Bad - poor resolution (2700 dpi), noisy, used USB 1.0 or FireWire (IEEE 1394), OEM software unusable since Windows XP.

So, a replacement scanner was much needed and the Plustek was one of very few “mid range” scanners out there. The 8200 Ai seemed like overkill, as I do not need formal end-to-end colour profiling these days (been there, done that) and I have been using VueScan for ages to run my old Minolta and my previous and current flatbed scanners (the latter is quite new, but does not really need the fancy CanoScan software for simple scan/tweak/print).

The 8200i arrived very promptly and when unboxed was similar in size and weight to the Minolta. The main difference is that the film moves side to side rather than front to back. This may well be to allow manual movement between frames, otherwise the holder would become “buried” inside the machine! I thought the manual feed would be a pain, but since I tend to stick around during scanning, I find that I actually rather like it. Hopefully, the film holders will not wear too much with repeated use. They are reasonably sturdy, but not quite up to Minolta 2000s standards. The new setup worked out of the box with VueScan, but SilverFast required a scanner driver update (from Plustek) and seemed better after an update of the scanning software itself. I found that if it became unstable the best option was to go into the opening menu, reset all the settings to default and start again.

After a few hours, I decided the SilverFast software was worth the trouble, especially with black & white film. I have some b&w slides somewhere, but have not tried those yet. Colour slides look excellent straight off the machine (Fuji etc.) but I haven’t reached my Kodachrome yet. Colour negatives also look good, but I do not use them much, TBH. The high resolution is really useful - 3600 dpi routinely or 7200 dpi for special slides or heavy cropping. That means slow scans and big files - but the results are worth it.

Haven’t used grain reduction much, but I routinely use multi scan (to increase Dmax) and Plustek’s version of digital ICE. This is not a good idea with most b&w films, but you will soon know if it is not working - the scans look like modern art from all the artefacts!

At just over the RRP (COVID-19), I think this is still decent value, but note that the price has gone crazy since I ordered mine. Keep an eye on fluctuations as there seems to be a supply and demand problem currently. This apart, I would certainly recommend this machine, but if you are a newbie, please remember that scanning, like most things, is a skill which requires practice to gain experience.
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